WEST VIRGINIA’S AUSTIN GETS KUDOS FROM GRUDEN

The late Sid Gillman, we think, would’ve seen vast potential in West Virginia’s playmaker deluxe, Tavon Austin.

A creative strategist who coached the Chargers to their lone league title in 1963, Gillman believed in using the football field’s entire width.

Austin — quick, fast, versatile and elusive — is a summa cum laude graduate of the very same school of thought.

Austin’s talents as both a receiver and a running back, coupled with a clever spread attack directed by Geno Smith, stretched defenses to a threadbare state.

Against Oklahoma, that a person of Austin’s stature — 5-feet-8½ and 187 pounds — could run for 344 yards, as he did last fall, would’ve been thought impossible by conventional thinkers.

But where talent and tactical creativity meet, the chess board can open up. Football men look at Austin and see exciting ways to unclog and thus better attack defenses.

“I’ve seen quick guys, I’ve seen fast players — but I’ve never seen very many that have the combination of speed and quickness like Austin has,” said Super Bowl-winning coach Jon Gruden, an ESPN analyst who spoke to reporters last Monday.

“He ran for 8,000 yards as a high school tailback in Maryland, and he averaged about 7 or 8 yards a carry this year when they handed it to him.”

It’s questionable whether Austin is more capable than the players to whom he is often compared: Darren Sproles, the 5-foot-6 dynamo and fourth-round selection of the Chargers in 2005; and Percy Harvin, a 5-11, 192-pound mainstay on two national champion teams, drafted 22nd overall by the Minnesota Vikings in 2009.

But this week, Austin will be drafted well before the fourth round, and could be gone sooner than Harvin went.

Harvin, meantime, has only increased in value. The Seahawks this winter trade a premium draft pick to get him and toss in an extension for $64.5 million.

NFL football, it’s said, is becoming more of a “space” game. What has always been true of the sport is that if an opponent is impelled to defend all 53.3 yards east-west, the north-south avenues are more easily found.

Known as a “joker” for his breadth of abilities, which include returning punts and kicks, Austin is seen as a means to that end.

“He’s just a fun, deluxe joker to have on your football team,” Gruden said. “He’s going to make an impact, I believe, big time.”